Dear Teacher-to-Teacher: Alaska to El Salvador Project Friends,
Dianne and I arrived safely in San Salvador on Thanksgiving Day with much to be thankful for!
It took 45 minutes to check in at the counter in Fairbanks and we nearly missed our first flight! Apparently there were extra segments in our computer records, and they were out of order having us arrive in Los Angeles before we left Seattle. After the records were finally recreated correctly, we got boarding passes but couldn’t get baggage tags for checked luggage. We were down to 15 minutes before the flight left when the agents decided to hand write the tags – like they used to do in the OLD days – and we still had to clear security! Of course no one else was as late as we were so we whisked right through security and ran for the gate – well, Dianne ran and I “crutched.”
The next glitch was that we were supposed to be in an exit row from Seattle to Los Angeles, which wasn’t allowed with me on crutches, but that could be changed at the gate. We had time in Seattle for a bite to eat and a very nice family with two cute children walked us to the gate with all of our hand carries. After they left we discovered that our gate had been changed from D7 to C16. For those of you who know SeaTac, that’s practically from one end of the airport to the other. An electric cart was called but didn’t arrive for nearly 20 minutes so we were once again late. Our LAX flight was boarding when we got to the gate. Then, wouldn’t you know it, we had to wait for people from a connecting flight and took off about 20 minutes late.
By the time we got to Los Angeles we were so late that the electric carts and shuttle were shut down, and we found ourselves again short on time. A wonderful Alaska agent on the SEA flight had arranged for a wheel chair, and the attendant and Dianne wheeled me from terminal #3 to #4. He wasn’t supposed to go out of his home terminal so he earned a generous tip! Our bags were checked through, but Fairbanks hadn’t been able to print us any kind of boarding pass for the American flight from LAX to San Salvador so we couldn’t get through security in terminal #4 without going to the American ticket counter. A stern agent ignored the fact that our carry-on’s wouldn’t begin to fit the little test rack she had set up. We breathed another sigh of relief. The attendant wheeled me through security and to the gate where, once again, the flight was boarding. We checked in so late that this time we couldn’t get seats together, but we were just thankful at least to be on the last leg of a harrowing itinerary.
Would you believe all of our bags arrived in San Salvador with us the next morning? We got through customs with green lights and our US based liaison, Tony Gasbarro, who had arrived a week before us, met us with the van to take us and all of our stuff to the hotel. The kitchen staff fixed a nice breakfast and we crashed for a much-needed nap. It was a l-o-n-g 18 hours, but all ended well. ¡Grácias a dios!
Next installment: Getting down to business!
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